The Marketing Book 2019

The Marketing Book 2019, Jason McDonald, JM Internet Group, 2019

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small. This book attempts to take the reader through the whole process.

What are you selling, a product or a service? Who is your customer?(Please be more specific than "everybody".) A Business Value Proposition defines what you sell that they want. Why should a person buy from you? Come up with an elevator pitch; describe your business in one or two sentences. Do some market research, and see if there really is a market for what you are selling.

Are you selling Business to Business (B2B), or Business to Consumer (B2C)? The marketing will be different for each. Find your niche; the high-end or the low-end, value part of the market.

Your business reputation is extremely important. Keep an eye on review sites like Google or Yelp. A single upset customer online can do great damage to an otherwise healthy company. Consider advertising on sites like Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, but don't do it because "everybody" is doing it. Are your potential customers going to be there?

All this time and effort spent on finding the best places to advertise will be worthless without some amazing content in those ads. The book looks at topics like keywords and search engine optimization, or SEO.

This book is very much worth reading for any marketing person, regardless of the size of the business. Don't try to understand the whole book in just one read. It has good information for all types of businesses.